A Fortune-Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East

by Tiziano Terzani

Only Ossendowski was still with me. With my intense interest, I had redeemed his book from death, made it something more than a mere object. Was that not how the Malaysian kris acquired a soul? Was it not also the message of a Tibetan story told by Alexandra David-Neel? A merchant goes to India, and his mother asks him to bring her a relic. He forgets. On his next journey he forgets again. The third time, when he is about to return home yet again without the relic his mother desires, he pulls a tooth from a dog’s skeleton lying by the roadside and brings it to her, saying it belonged to a great holy man. The mother is delighted, and venerates the tooth; other women come to pray before it, and in the end they all see rays of light emanating from that “relic.” Hence the Tibetan proverb: “If there is veneration even a dog’s tooth gives forth light.”